The Best of Select: Games Special 3/cd.iso/dosgames/ecotopia/readme.eco

Text File | 1992-10-17 | 16KB | 355 lines

                  Election of Ecotopia

                  by Jim Robison


     Copyright (c) 1986, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91 by Jim Robison.
     and 1992 by Robison Data Systems.
     Written with PowerBasic version 2.10f copyrighted by
     Robert S. Zale, Registered Trademark of Spectra Publishing.
     Incorporating the Windows for PowerBasic 2.10 routines
     copyrighted by Barry Erick.

Copyright Notice:   Election of Ecotopia is a trademark in use by
Robison Data Systems and the software is copyrighted by Jim Robison.
Portions of the software are copyrighted by Robert S. Zale and/or
Barry Erick.  Jim Robison grants to any user the right to copy
and distribute this software, provided that no charge is made for
the software other than standard disk copying and handling
charges.  All users are granted a brief trial period of no more
than thirty days to try out and to test the software.  If at the
end of this trial period the user wishes to continue to use the
software, the user is required to register the software by
forwarding the appropriate software registration fee to Robison
Data Systems.


     WARNING!  WARNING!  WARNING!  WARNING!  WARNING!  WARNING!

          THIS IS AN INTENSE, COMPLEX, AND HIGHLY
          STRATEGIC GAME.  IT IS NOT MEANT FOR THOSE
          WISHING TO KILL TIME BY KILLING SPACE ALIENS.



I.   Description

     This is a multi-player game for one to seven players and an
unlimited number of kibitzers.  The basic structure of Election
of Ecotopia is based on the concept of establishing a campaign
plan, and following it through.  The program itself is broken
into four distinct parts which reflect play of the game.

1)   The startup phase initiates all varibles, generates the
     demographics of Ecotopia, and allows the players to define
     their candidates.  At this point you may establish computer
     managed candidates in addition to the player managed
     candidates.

2)   The weekly "office" phase allows each player to establish
     and/or adjust their campaign plan, including their calendar,
     budget, volunteer assignments, etc.  The order of play in
     this phase may give certain advantages to the players who
     move first or last, therefore the order of play is
     determined randomly each week.

3)   The daily operations phase runs the actual simulation of the
     campaign taking place.  This phase runs through a week of
     activities at a time, and may take several minutes depending
     on the complexity of activities under way, the number of
     candidates and the speed of your computer.  During this phase
     certain events may occur which require input from the players.
     For example speeches and debates which take place will require
     the players to select topics for their statements.

4)   Finally, the Election Day phase tallys all the votes
     received by the candidates.  Total votes for each candidate
     are displayed on screen as they are being tallyed, along
     with percentages, voter turnout, and the percentage of
     precincts reported.  Due to the complexity of the method for
     calculating votes, it takes several minutes for the final
     vote to be tallyed.



II.  Intended Users

     This is a multi-player game.  Up to seven candidates may
compete in a highly competitive political campaign.  Election of
Ecotopia is likely to attract those players who are interested in
the electoral process, who are highly competetive, or who enjoy
strategic challenges such as this.  To play the game will require
at a minimum one hour, and possibly several hours depending on
the length of game selected, number of players, and the time each
player takes for their turn.  Students who wish to learn about the
electoral process and campaign strategies will find Election of
Ecotopia to be highly educational.


III. Unique Features

     Election of Ecotopia is designed to operate as a fairly
realistic simulation of a fictional campaign.  While it is
impossible to create a perfect model of electoral behavior, I
have attempted to include the most important factors in any
campaign.

     Incorporated into ECO are the attitudes of the voters concerning
various issues, the stands of the candidates, the demographics of
the electorate, and the likelihood of voters to turnout on
election day.

     Information concerning the candidates includes their stands
on various issues, perceived positions on the issues, political
party, speaking ability, charisma, integrity, prestige, and momentum.

     In addition voters in each region, or party, are inclined to
support a candidate from their own region, or their own party, even
if they otherwise disagree with that candidate.

     Three major factors are calculated to determine the voters
attitudes toward the candidates.  These are:
     1) issues,
     2) personality, and
     3) preferences.
The weight various voters place on each factor will differ among
the voters, and may change over time in response to the activities
of the candidates.

     I have not seen another attempt to so thoroughly simulate
the campaign process.  Election of Ecotopia gives the player
control over many factors of a camaign, and provides an internal
campaign manual which could even be helpful to someone learning
how to run a real life campaign.  I have molded into this program
many years of experience of working on various political
campaigns in various capacities as well as years of studying the
political process.  If you want an easy and fun way to learn
about campaigning, this is it!


IV.  Requirements

     Election of Ecotopia requires at least 640K of RAM to run.
It should run with any version of DOS 3.00 or higher, though I
have not yet tested it under all versions.  The program may run
well under earlier versions of DOS, but this has not been tested.
I have not yet determined the exact memory requirements, but I
know it will run under DOS 5.0 with 640K.  There are no specific
video requirements, the Map of Ecotopia may not display without
a minimum of a CGA adapter card.  The program will run properly
on a monochrome monitor.

     The program requires approximately 1 Megabyte of disk space.
It can be run on one 1.2M or 1.44M disk, two 720K, or four 360K
floppy disks, but a hard drive is preferable.  An additional floppy
disk is required to use the game saving option.  If run on 360K
disks, set up the disks as indicated in the third column of the
file list below, start the program from disk 1, then switch the
disks when prompted by the program.  It is highly recommended that
this program be run on a machine with a 16MHz processor or faster.
Slower machines will take considerable time to complete certain tasks.

     Placing the program files on a RAM drive will reduce delays
while the program is loading overlays.


V.   Start Up

     Type "ECO" to start the program.  Upon startup, you will
first select whether to load a saved game, load a saved scenario,
or start a new game.  If you start a new game you will have to
wait for the demographics of Ecotopia to be generated.  The total
number of registered voters will be displayed on the screen. Next
you will have the options of Playing the Game, Reading the
Instruction, Reading the History of Ecotopia, or Exiting the
Game.

     The History is meant to add some color to the game.  The
Instructions are highly informative as to strategies which can be
employed in winning the game.  Note that the instructions are
also available from the Library Menu (as Campaign Manual) during
the weekly campaign strategy phase.  I suggest that you skim the
instructions once before starting, then refer back to the
Campaign Manual while developing your strategy.

     Upon starting the game, you will be required to answer
several self explanatory questions.  Note that the election date
is always November 3rd, 1992.  The length of the campaign is
determined by the date selected for the campaign to begin.  An
earlier beginning date gives a longer campaign. The length of
the campaign ranges from 4 weeks to 28 weeks.  I must warn you
that this is a long and complex game of intense strategy.  I
highly recommend that if you have not played this game before
that you select the shortest (4 week) version.  The longest
versions of the game should not be attempted unless you have
registered the game and received the Save Games option, or you
are willing to spend a couple sleepless nights at the computer.

     Your next task is to create the candidates.  If you have
saved candidate definitions, you may load a saved candidate at
this time.  Each player must select a name, party, and home
region, then set up the stands their candidate will hold on the
various issues.  Note that when selecting the stand your
candidate will take, your political party's position will be
highlighted.  This will also help you to know what the voters
percieve your position to be.  At the start of the campaign
cycle, the voters will assume that you hold the same stands as
your party's platform.  If this is not the case, then you may
want to let the voters know through your advertising and
speeches.  As time goes on, the voters will learn more about the
stands of the candidates.  Don't worry, you do have the option of
later changing your position, at the cost of a little credibility,
or of simply ignoring an issue in the hope that the voters will
overlook it.


VI.  Registration

     This program took several years to produce.  I started out
writing this game in standard GWBasic as a method of learning and
practicing programming.  I later converted the program to
TurboBasic, then to PowerBasic.  This version bears very little
resemblance to the original one.  I have put a great deal of work
into this product.

     This is not a "free" program.  This is shareware.  If you
continue to use this program after a brief trial period, your
conscience will bother you until you send a registration fee of
$25.00 to:

                    Robison Data Systems
                    6615 N. Princeton St.
                    Portland, Oregon 97203.

     Payment of the registration fee will support continued
improvements to this product, and entitle you to a free upgrade
to the next release version.  In addition, all registered users
will be given discounted updates to future versions and receive
the game saving feature which can be used to save games, scenarios,
and candidates.

     In development is a scenario editing program.  The Scenario
Editor will allow users to create their own Candidates
and scenarios, even to duplicate real life cases.  The Scenario
Editor will be made available to registered users only.

     When registering, please let me know where you received your
copy of the program, the exact version number, and the serial number.
(This information appears on the opening screen.)  This will help
me to keep track of how the software is being distributed and
where there are outdated versions floating around.  If you have
comments or bug reports, please send them, regardless of whether or
not you are a registered user.


VII. Files Included

File      Ext  Description                    Four 360K Setup
=============================================================
ECO       EXE  The Startup Program                on Disk 1
OFFICE    PBC  Weekly Strategy Chain File         on Disk 2
LIBRARY   PBC  News/Library Chain File            on Disk 2
ELECT     PBC  The Daily Routines Chain File      on Disk 3
DEBATE    PBC  Debates Chain File                 on Disk 3
EDAY      PBC  Election Day Chain File            on Disk 4
MAP       ECO  Graphic "BLOAD" Map of Ecotopia    on Disk 1 & 2
HISTORY   ECO  Text History of Ecotopia           on Disk 1 & 2
README    ECO  This Document File
REGISTER  ECO  Registration Form

SAVEOPT   PBC  Save Game Chain File, distributed to registered
               users only.                        save game disk
*         GAM  Saved Game Files
*         CAN  Saved Candidate Files
*         SCE  Saved Scenario Files


VIII.Contact
     Comments or suggestions should be sent to:

                      Jim Robison
                      6615 N. Princeton St.
                      Portland, OR 97203

       CompuServe Id: 76645,1024
                 BBS: [phone]
        FidoNet Node: 1:105/84.


IX.  Misc.
     Nearly all features of the program are documented within the
program itself.  Most options are accessable from the menus presented
on screen.  However, four function keys are used within the program,
but are not fully documented in the program.

        F10             End the Game
        F9              Toggle Sound off or on
        F5              Decrease delays
        F4              Increase delays

Delays are inserted when a screen is presented for informational
reasons but requires no user input, for example concerning the actions
of computer managed candidates.  Depending on the current status of the
program you will likely experience a short delay before a function key
is recognized and acted upon.


X.   Version History

1.x  - First try, in GWBasic

2.x  - Converted to TurboBasic 1.0
     - Many new routines.

3.x  - Converted to PowerBasic 2.0
     - Completely new windowed interface.
     - First Shareware distribution.

4.0  - Added numerous features.
     - Debates
     - Speeches
     - Save Games Option

4.1  - Upgraded to PowerBasic 2.10a

4.2  - Upgraded to PowerBasic 2.10f
     - Fixed a number of memory errors.
     - Significant changes in the handling of certain variables in memory.
     - Incorporated new factors in the behavior of voters, and
       added computer managed candidates.  It is possible to set up a
       campaign, and have all the candidates managed by the computer.
     - Added function keys noted above.

4.3x - Added additional options for activities of the candidate, including
       Vacations, Meeting VIPS, Practicing Speaking.
     - Completed the computer managed candidates to take advantage of all
       campaign activities intelligently.

4.40 - Broke out Library and Debate into their own Chain Files, reducing
       the amount of free memory required to run the program.
     - Adjusted the calculations of votes to improve the voter model.

The Future? - Maybe a Windows version.
            - Mouse Support.
            - Graphical Interface
            - An On-Line version for BBS Door play.

XI.  Questions & Answers.

1.  "What is "SAVEOPT.PBC" and why don't I have it?"
        SaveOpt.Pbc is the Save Games Option.  It is NOT distributed
        with the shareware distrution of the game.  SaveOpt.Pbc is
        sent only to registered users of Election of Ecotopia.  Once
        you register and receive this file, you will be able to save
        your candidates, scenarios, and games for play at a later
        date.

2.  "What is this Scenario Editor you mentioned?"
        The Scenario Editor will be made available to registered users
        only.  It will allow you to examine the details of a particular
        scenario, or candidate, and edit them.  You could use the Scenario
        Editor to create a replica of a real life campaign and test the
        accuracy of the Election of Ecotopia model, or experiment with
        possible campaign strategies.